How I got my job as Twitch streamer Kai Cenat's assistant thanks to an Instagram DM — and a zebra

• Brianna Lewis, 28, works as a personal assistant to top Twitch streamer Kai Cenat.
• Lewis landed her role after DMing Cenat on Instagram in 2021.
• Here's what her days are like working for a top creator.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed interview with 28-year-old Brianna Lewis, who is an assistant to Twitch streamer Kai Cenat. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I've always wanted to work in the creative space. But I was never presented the right opportunity until late 2021, when a family member sent me Kai Cenat's Instagram story.

Kai is a Twitch streamer and YouTube creator with millions of subscribers across multiple platforms. He posted on his Instagram that he was looking for an assistant.

I didn't even follow him — or know who he was.

But one of my family members did, and I was like, "OK, I guess I'll just message him."

At the time, I had just quit the job that I was working for. I reached out to him through Instagram DMs, and just told him a little bit about myself.

Then he responded to me and he basically said: "If you can get this one task done for me, then I know you can do anything. And you could have the job."

And I was like, "OK, what's the task?"

And he was like, "I want to turn my house into a zoo, and I need a zebra."

I was not expecting that at all, and we were talking on a Friday. I'm like, "OK, when do you need this?" And he said Monday, and I was like, "Oh, shit!"

But you know, we got it done.

I called zoo after zoo in Georgia, where Kai lives, until I found a mobile petting zoo that happened to have a baby zebra available for hire.

They weren't even available for the date I needed, but I begged them to do it, and they eventually agreed. If they had said no, I probably wouldn't be here [working for Kai] today.

I had just recently moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. At the time, I had only been there for maybe 20 days when I got this opportunity with Kai, and he was in Atlanta. Kai's younger than me. I'm 28, and he's 21, and when I first started working for him he was 19 and I was 26.

He was kind of hesitant to have me move down here, since I was out of state. I just told him, "Look, I'm willing to take the risk, and I can just go move back home if I need to."

He said he got a lot of submissions, but that mine was the most professional, and that's why he ended up replying to me.

Behind the scenes working for a top creator

I started working for him in 2021. He's the only creator I've worked for — though I've met so many creators, and so many people will reach out if they need a tip, or if they need help.

I feel like people hear the word assistant, and they think coffee, laundry, small stuff. But I'll tell you that is just not the case.

You wear so many hats when you're an assistant. One day you could be cleaning things up and organizing things, and then the next day you're producing content, hiring other employees, making sure that everybody's doing the things that they're supposed to do, responding to emails, and negotiating deals.

Nothing is too big, or too small.

And no two days are the same. But I've been working for him for so long that we kind of are in a routine where I know the days he's streaming, and the things that he's probably going to need, and I go to his house pretty often. I usually check in at least once a day. It's never like, "Be here by this time!"

When you're an assistant, you get to know your client, or your boss — or whatever you want to call them — so well that you just know what their schedule is like, and what their days look like. You can kind of gauge when they're going to need you, and what exactly they're going to need — probably before even they realize that they need it. You're like two steps ahead of them all the time.

The thing about live content is there's really never a dull moment. It's always something new and exciting, and we've done so many crazy things together.

The most impactful thing is probably his 30-day "subathon" that we did in February where he livestreamed for 30 days straight. The cameras were never off, and every day we had different activities planned out for 24 hours of the day to keep things entertaining.

I was behind the scenes, making sure everyone showed up on time, trying to solve problems in real time and book talent to show up and surprise guests. It was so chaotic. But it was just so fun. And then he went on to breaking the world record for the most subscribers on Twitch, which was just a really proud moment.

How networking has helped with day-to-day tasks

I love the creator space, just for the simple fact that it allows you that creative freedom, but also seeing that process has been really fun.

My social-media presence has grown. I think it's just inevitable with anybody who's in close quarters with somebody who's an influencer, especially to that scale.

When you work for a creator who's to Kai's scale, it's like the same with working for any company. Whatever you say on social media, you could get laid off for that, or you could get in trouble for that. And it's similar. You have to filter yourself on social media a bit just to keep everything professional and you don't want to do anything that's going to impact the brand negatively on social media.

The biggest part about my job, which is nice, is that I'm able to network with the people that know the creator I work for.

The relationships you build with people really make all the difference. Especially with these crazy things like, find me a zebra, or get me 40 dogs in my bedroom, or I want a lion — who knows what it could be. The most out-of-the-box ideas are going to pop up and I'm expected to be able to figure that out.

I think whenever there's something that I'm like, "oh, gosh, I don't know if I can get this done," or if I'm on a serious time crunch, now I'm at a point where I have this whole community of people that I've met in the space that I can reach out to, who will help me move those mountains just based on the relationship that we've built.

I think that networking is really the most important thing that you can do because there's other people who have been in the space way longer than me that have more resources.

Kai has also met all sorts of people and celebrities. I think I've met just about all of them that he's collabed with.

It's always a little bit of a surreal moment like, "Wow, how did I end up here? I'm standing in the room with Ice Spice? Or I'm standing in a room with Drake?"

An unpredictable schedule can make it hard to take time off and visit family

Now that Kai is more well known, all of a sudden my family is reaching out to me like, "Hey, do you think you can get me his autograph? "

I'm like, "Oh, now you know what I do."

For the first year and a half, my family didn't even know what I did for work. I would tell them, but it was just not clicking because they didn't know who he was. I remember one of my uncles reached out, and he was like, "Do you have a job?"

It's funny. But it's hard, because they'll ask me some of the same questions like, "What's your schedule like? Or are you going to be able to come to XY and Z family events? " And it's so hard to say yes or no, because my schedule is so spur of the moment.

Read more about what it's like to work for top creators:

Find me a zebra and you can have the job: What it's like to work for top YouTube stars, according to 17 current and former staffers of creators like MrBeast and Kai Cenat